When you are very small and the world is very big and everybody is taller than you and you are shorter than everybody else, there is only one place to be if you want to be very very safe: inside a box.

It does not really matter how large the box is – although it is nice to be able to stretch your legs and stomp your feet and dance a little dance whenever you have a mind to. And when is it that you might have a mind to? Whenever the mood strikes you. And what is this mood that might come and strike you? This mood that might come and strike you and give you a mind to stretch your legs and stomp your feet and dance a little dance? Myself, I do not know what exactly it is, but whatever exactly it is only appears when the time is right. And when – if I might be so bold as to ask – when exactly is the time when the time is exactly right? The answer is simple enough – as only a child of three or a kitten or a puppy or a tiny mouse can tell you. You see, the time is only exactly right when there are no very big people outside the box a’thinking that the very little people inside the box are in need of something to do and what the very little people must do is something that only the very big people outside the box are big enough to ask the very little people why it is they were not already doing these things they were supposed to be doing? At which point, the very big people who never seem to have anything else to do except tell very little people what to do, proceed to ‘remind’ the very small people (in a very bored voice) what it is they were supposed to have been doing and how they were supposed to have been doing it. So, you see, the minute the very small people hear the very big people coming into the room where the box is sitting minding its own business in the middle of the floor, and the very big people right away demand to know what that dirty great box is doing right in the middle of the room, the very small people grow very much smaller and hide in the corner of that dirty great box and pretend not to be there at all. And if the box could talk, but of course being a box it is unable to talk – at least not in a language that is known to anyone who is not a box, it would have said right there and then, “Oi! Very Big People! Why do you shout at me in such a cold, impatient voice? I am only a box. I sit wherever I am put. For you see, unlike the very big person-self that you happen to be, I have no legs and no feet. So by myself I find I cannot leap or frolic. In fact, I cannot go anywhere at all. As it so happens, I am sitting here contemplating the meaning of life (since you asked), but don’t you have anything better to do than come into an otherwise empty room and say unkind words to a box? Or perhaps what you are really looking for is your own very big person – a big person even much bigger than you – to come in here and tell you what you must do. But if this is in truth only what you are pretending to be looking for, whereas – in fact – what you are really looking for is a very big box of your very own, I am sorry to have to disappoint you, but I am not that box. For while I am a very big box, I am not nearly big enough for you!” And what this box could have also said to the very big person who was only pretending to look for the very small person but who – in actually fact – was only looking his own very very big box – a box very much bigger that even the biggest box that had ever been made – is that the very big person has let himself grow into a very big person without letting the very small person who was living inside remain the same happy small person he had always been meant to be.

It is a blessing for all very small people that very big people cannot help but make a racket and a rumpus when they go about doing their very important big people things. That being the case, the very small people hiding in the box are never caught unawares (unless, of course, they are so busy eating all the chocolates they stole that their minds are in a fog). But when their minds are not all fogged up as they are usually not except when there are stolen chocolates to eat, they always can hear the very big people before the very big people come ‘clomp clomp clomping’ into the room, if only because the very big people (by the fact that they are so very big and have forgot how it is to be small) have forgot how to creep and crawl and sneak up on a box without making any noise at all. Rather they go ‘clomp clomp clomp’ and they blunder and trip and mumble under their breath, and mutter such very big people mutterings as, “Where is the little beggar, and in which box is he hiding at this particular moment in time? And do you think he’d like to be shaken and stirred before tea? Or perhaps I shall hurl this one particular very big box – this one particular very big box that reeks of chocolate that was swiped from the plate that was set out for my own very big person, my own very own great aunt Missus Esmeralda MacFittie MacSprat who lives in a bog and dines off roast hog – the hog she calls “if only my late husband tasted half as tasty as he.”

Such a big person’s intrusion as this, my dear friends, is one of those very particular times when the little person inside the box will not be gallivanting and skiing and dancing and practising his jumping jacks, so sirree. In fact, the very little person will be quiet as a mouse and less noisy than a grouse, for a very small person does not want to be found at such an inconvenient big person’s time as this, especially not by a grumbling and mumbling big person who is all ‘clomp clomp clomping’ about and thinks he is being funny “tee hee tee hee tee hee.”

Why do you think it is that when there is a very little person inside a box and it hears the ‘clomp clomp clompish’ tread of a big person searching for the box in which that little person is hiding, that the little person holds its breath and raises a sticky, chocolaty smudgy finger to its lips and says, “Shhhhh!” to the ‘invisible’ friend who is also hiding right there in that very same big box with the very little person, and who has fingers that are even more chocolatier smudgier than those of the very little person with whom it is keeping company? Is it perhaps because the very small ‘invisible’ friend of the very small person inside the box cannot be seen by any very big person, not even if that very big person wishes he could find his own very very very own big box in which he himself can hide – together with his own very very large ‘invisible’ friend. But, of course, being so very very big and having forgot what it was like to be so very very small, this very very big person can no longer remember where to find such an ‘invisible’ friend, and so he sighs and laments and forever remains a very very big person after all.

It goes without saying that the very big person is so very very big – having given up his wish to remember what it is to be very very small, that he has forgot how to be anything but very very big and that, in fact, it is only the very small person who is inside the box and seeing the ‘invisible’ friend as plain as the nose on its face who is the only person on earth who can actually see that very very small ‘invisible’ friend at all (except for the horse and the dog and the cat and the parrot, of course). This is the particular time when the very very big person gnashes his teeth and starts in to frown and even to shed a tear or two. And every very very small person on this very very big and very very round earth on which we live knows as well as he knows how many fingers and toes he has on the ends of his very very own very very small person’s hands and feet, that the very very big person is the unhappiest very very big person on this very very big and very very round earth in which we live. For, you see, the very very big person – who the very very small person loves more that he loves even the chocolates he stole from the plate set aside for the very very big person’s very own very very very big person, the big person’s own very own great aunt MissusEsmeralda MacFittie MacSprat (who has a shelf that juts like a prow of a ship and twelve quivering chins and eyes like two gimlets that don’t miss a thing) – is doomed to always live forever and ever outside the box. And as such, he will not like his own very small person to be hiding in a box with an ‘invisible’ friend that the very large person cannot see. For very, very perhaps – and even every problematically maybe – the very small ‘invisible’ friend they cannot see but who is inside the box with the very large person’s very own very small person might not be such a nice sort of small ‘invisible’ person to be in a box with a very small member of the very large person’s personal family.

And so, the very very small person who has been eating the chocolates he stole from the plate set aside for the very very big person’s very own very very big person – his great aunt MissusEsmeralda MacFittie MacSprat – and who also was drinking pretend hot chocolate he hadn’t stole from anyplace and a dozen or so real chocolate biscuits and a plate of Marmite soldiers that he snuck out of the pantry after lunch and hid in his hat so nobody but he would know it was there, is suddenly gripped by the fear that the very, very large person will find the right box in which he is hiding and see that the very small person is smeared with chocolate from the biscuits and from the plate set aside for the very very big and very very large great aunt MissusEsmeralda MacFittie MacSprat. And not only that, but this very small person also has Marmite all over his socks from dropping the soldiers when his little ‘invisible’ friend – the ‘invisible’ friend who is invisible to all those big persons who not only dislike and distrust all those very special ‘invisible’ friends of their own small persons but who just washed out those very selfsame socks the night before after their own very small person had taken them off to wipe up a mess it had made when using a can of shaken up Irn Bru it was deploying to fight the enemy and had thrown it across the room thinking quite rightly that it was a perfect very perfect grenade.

But alas and alack for the very small person who is eating up the rest of his snack, for some reason or other the very large person always comes to the very right box and launches an attack.

“What are you doing there?” the very large person will say. “And why did you not answer, my own naughty son, and what is it you have got on your chin?”

And the very small person, who’s got the wits of a sprite, answers back as quick as you please, “But papa what do you mean? The only thing stuck to the end of my face is my very own very small and very pink chin. The chin with a scar from where I fell down and split it open on that very old garden rake, and which is also the very red and very raw little chin that was bit yesterday by my pet snake, ‘Arithmetitica’.”

The very large person, who like all very large persons has very little humour indeed, then lifts his own small person right out of the box and holds him up in the air.

“And in addition to being so very raw and red, is your chin made of chocolate, as well,” the very large person asks with a scowl and a sneer and two thousand very superior grunts.

“Oh, yes, papa, oh, yes indeed. It is of chocolate I surely am made.”

“And what of those Marmite socks on your feet?”

“It’s not Marmite, papa. The brown on those soldiers is something that was dropped by the dog when you were too lazy to give it a properly good run in the night.”

The very big person then starts to yell. “You sonofabitch, all liars go to Hell.”

And the very small person says with a grin, “Will you be so kind so very very kind as to say that again even louder? Right over by my window, for I am sure from where my mummy is sitting on the garden bench she will be glad to know more of the words you’ve be putting into my sweet and innocent little head.”

And this is the moment the very small person has either won or perhaps he has lost. It all depends on where his dear mama – who knows what all the bad words really mean and where they were made in the first place (for she regularly practises them herself). Oh, yes, indeed, she is well aware whence on the earth they came and how not to use them at the W.I. or when the vicar comes to tea. But she is always willing to learn many more, and for that very reason she has been hiding herself all this very time (not in a box but on an old garden bench, which when you think of it is very much the same thing, that is if you are a mother and can sit very still and listen without disturbing so much as a plant or a twig. So, if the mother is indeed on her bench which is very very much like her own private box, or else in the house or out in the rockery killing the rats and pulling up bindweed, she will not be in a very good mood to hear what her dear husband has been saying to her beloved first-born son – at least if the new words are neither very new nor very inventive. However, but if the mother is out gallivanting with her secret lover or even with one of her own ‘invisible’ friends (sometimes also called ‘the second gardener), then papa can call the very small person’s wee little bluff. And since no very very big person likes any bluff whatsoever to be called either by himself or by his own very very small person – especially not by the very very small person who has stolen the plate of rich very rich very dark Belgian Chocolates that had been set aside for the very large person’s ferocious and formidable own very big and very large great aunt MissusEsmeralda MacFittie MacSprat. And this, if I may, spells a very very unpleasant end to an otherwise very very pleasant day for the very small person and his ‘invisible’ friend in his very big box. For, alas and alack, the very big person sends the very small person to his room without so much as a snack, and he then vents his spleen on the innocent box that has been sitting in the middle of the room and minding its own business and enjoying the fun whilst thinking on themes by Proust and by Joyce and by a certain good-looking rascal in Gounod’s opera ‘Faust’. The very big box that has been so joyfully used is now torn into bits and taken downstairs and thrown into the boiler. And so endeth another day in the life of a box, a life that is uncertain as a pigeon of clay. But as the smoke arises from the chimney, it whispers a very few words of farewell to the very very small person who has given it so much fun. And as it floats up past the window, all it manages to say is “Next time find another room in another part of the house and don’t be putting your very new big box in the middle of the room like you just did with me. Nooooo… if you can fit it in and if it is not too very large, hide it in a wardrobe… or even in the boot of your father’s very very big car. For, you know don’t you know, both places are safe. Your father – like all very very big persons and especially those big persons who like to call themselves ‘men’ never think to look in wardrobes (for they are for women) and a boot of a car is never ever looked into at all.

In the meantime the very small person is taken to his room and put in a chair with a book. A book with no pictures or even a joke, just a lot of words like how many apples do you lose from your bag before you will finally go broke.

While there are, of course, may many reasons why very small people hide out in box, and all of us who in our hearts are still very small people and still take up a very small place, can only be truly ourselves when we let ourselves go and climb into a box that is just the right size for the very person we still wish to be. What better place is there than a box for telling your ‘invisible’ friends all about the troubles you are having inyour life. And is there a better place to take that one piece of cake that had been set aside for your auntie you hate, only the cake leapt into your pocket instead? And what about the times when open warfare breaks out between those very large people you hold so very dear? And how about those days when – for no reason at all except you are alive and you don’t even know why you were made alive but you wish you were not alive anymore? And then, there are those days when the clouds disappear and the sun shines all over your mind. And everything’s clear and you love those you hold dear and you’ll simply explode if you can’t tell a friend – an ‘invisible’ friend – the only true friend you have had since your birth.

And then you grow older and things start to change and you need to be all by yourself. The bathroom is fine, but only for a minute or two, because one of the big persons will knock on the door and ask how much longer you’ll be, because for some reason big people simply do not understand what it’s like to be a very small person and then a not-so-small person and then an almost-grownup person. It is as if from the day they were born they have been a very very big very grownup person weighed down with that excuse and that curse called ‘responsibility’. These very very big persons cannot or will not look back at their youth, nor can they remember how very very much fun they had, or what it was like to be free. To be a very very small person who only wanted to live in a box.

I despair for those ‘grownups’ who reach a certain age when they take on the world and then they let the world beat them down. They see a small person having a great time and they yell at it to “shut up and sit down.” They are always telling the very small persons to grow up and act their age, but what is that small person’s age he is supposed to be acting when that small person has only eight or eighteen years on his very young clock?

Why do so many very very big persons forget what it was like? Why do they let themselves forget? Was their own very small personhood so painful and cramped that they are glad it is buried and they wish not to live it again through their own small persons? Did their own very very big person back when they were small beat them and scold then and never ever gave them a smile? What is past is past. What is gone is gone. But not to so very very many big persons, who , instead of rejoicing in the small persons who are new, these soured and bitter and cantankerous very very old fools set about to create in their own very very small persons in the image of their own miserable selves, thus creating yet another generation of soured and crabbed and cantankerous old fools. And then they wonder why they are left all alone in nursing homes or left in a ditch; and then bereft and forgot, these very very big and now dying persons demand to know why it is that none of their formerly very very small persons ever ever stops by to say farewell, and to whisper ever so softly in their ears, “I really do love you and I thank you for just being you.”

I love armpits! Quite simply, the armpits are the windows to the soul. Not the eyes; after all, what are eyes but two little globs of jelly curtained from above and below by fringes of wispy fringes called lashes. And the lashes are never compatible with the eyes themselves! And part of this is because the eyes themselves are so randomly coloured. And the colour charts from which the shades are chosen are so limited. Why, they don’t even embrace all the colours of the rainbow. Nor do they include such vibrant hybrids as magenta or mustard yellow or orange or Ferrari red. And forget about zebra stripes or leopard spots or flashing neon lights or polka dots or panthers peering from round the irises. Of course, some of these effects are possible with the aid of contact lenses; and in photographs one can always cheat and resort to computer imaging and photo-shop and even to cutting and pasting more interesting eyes into the slots formerly occupied by your own boring greyish blue jelly globs – in other words, the very eyes you have been trying to pass off as ‘baby blues’. But that is not the same, is it. And it doesn’t even work, for the minute someone sees you in the flesh they notice how boring your face actually looks. In fact, faced with the real non-existent colour of your eyes, they can’t even find your face in order to look into it. And so then and there you lose your evening’s entertainment.

Of course, it goes without saying that if you always wear the colours that supposedly enhance your eyes, at least they will notice the vividness of your shirt. But, on the other hand, such a technique does limit your choice of wardrobe. For example, my eyes are your basic, washed-out greyish blue. They are, in fact the original invisible eyes. If I am willing to wear certain darkish bright blue shirts – the ones I loathe because they make me feel as though I am trying to pass myself off as a banker – you can almost see that I really do have eyes. That is, if the light is right and I am drunk enough that my eyes are lined with red. And as for mascara and eye-liner, don’t kid yourself. The only time they work is if you’ve got amazing eyes to begin with. Otherwise you look like Bozo the Clown.

No one with eyes like mine could ever be a Latin lover or a Corsican bandit or a Sheikh or – for that matter – a movie heart-throb. Latin lovers, by definition, cannot be invisible. They must have flashing eyes. The same with Corsican bandits, and even more so with the sort of desert Sheikh played by Rudolf Valentino and Ramon Navarro – the truly smouldering sheikhs that used to kidnap the dainty blond heroines in the movies (before the coming of sound and colour sucked out the audiences’ souls and replaced them with 3-D glasses). The one thing all these heart-throbs of yesteryear had in common were eyes like flashing black diamonds, illuminated from within by the light of the moon. The second you stared into those limpid black pools of desire, you knew what was next on the menu. And it wasn’t called the blue plate special. It was called “Va Va Voom!” It was called the sort of sex that was better dreamed about than displayed on the screen. It was called, “Oh, fuck! I wish (pant pant pant) he would leap out of the screen on his white charger and take me right here on the cinema floor on top of the spilled popcorn and candy-wrappers!”

Never mind that – in the case of those smouldering Sheikhs – once they had kidnapped the fair damsel (usually a simpering blond with a palpitating heart such as Agnes Ayers) they took her back to live in their mother’s tent in the oasis – where she was doomed to spend the rest of her life beating the carpets and hanging out the wash and churning out babies every week and a half. But the movies never showed that side of things – and wouldn’t until the 1960s and Ken Loach and ‘Poor Cow’.

Needless to say, Rudolf Valentino and his ilk cut a wide berth around the likes of Theda Bara, for she was a temptress who would have eaten him for breakfast and taken him home to live in the brothel with her mother, where he would have had to do a great many other things besides scrubbing the floors. In fact, poor ol’ Rudolph did finally come a cropper with a certain Alla Nazimova. And the upshot was that he died. In other words, his eyes stopped flashing. And this only shows that you should never stray from the profile assigned you by the computer. And it also proves that once your eyes stop flashing, you might as well be the parking attendant. Whereas, if you’ve got pits to die for you can always climb out of your coffin and become an unspeakably pitiless vampire.

Let me just add this before we move on. Yes, Rudolf Valentino died. And he died when he was still gorgeous and still had a glimmer of flashing, smouldering eyes that burned like charcoals; however, if he hadn’t died in tragic circumstances and prematurely, no one would remember him. You see, flashing eyes can only take you so far! What they need to ensure immortality is a breath of scandal and a really great funeral with women in black hurling themselves on to the coffin. Otherwise, as soon as you’re buried you’re yesterday’s news and your family won’t be able to make any money from the sale of your relics. Just look at poor old Ramon ‘Who’s he’ Navarro. He was a sheikh with flashing eyes just a rung on the ladder below Valentino. But nobody remembers him. And the reason no one does is that he didn’t die a tragic death, did he? Well, actually he did, but by the time he was brutally murdered, he was just an old, washed-up has-been who’d used up all his money buying rent-boys. Needless to say, not a single woman swathed in black and festooned with jet even attended his funeral, much less swooned over his coffin. And do you know why? Because by the time he was dead, his flashing eyes were more like week-old dead slugs. And nobody even knew or cared whether he had any pits at all.

Believe me when I say that the woods are full of screen sirens and pop idols with flashing eyes who forgot to die when they should have. But as I said before, you’ve got to keep with the program! For eyes dry up, and once the light has gone out of them, they might just as well have had invisible and boring grey-blue eyes just like mine. And after a point, not even fluorescent contact lenses and spot lights will bring them to life again.

Now, there are some – not many – heart-throbs who are lumbered with invisible eyes. And sometimes they even have boring invisible pale skin and hair the colour of mouse turds. In fact, some of them are even cursed with colouring like mine. In other words, whole-body invisibility. Such people were invariably called ‘Minger’ in school – unless, of course, they were cursed with even the slightest hint of salmon pink in their hair (and especially when that hair was growing on a pair of exuberantly forested milk-white legs), in which case they were stuck with the ‘Ginger’ label. And sometimes if you had both things going for you at the same time you really did develop an issue with your parents; in other words, why didn’t they think to match their colour-charts before ‘doing it’? I almost fitted into that category, but then I shaved my leg-hair and it grew back a nice, flat mousey brown. Just think, I just missed out on rejoicing in that wonderful double-barrelled nickname of ‘Ginger-Minger’ (and no, it is not pronounced ‘jinjer-minjer’).

Yes, I admit there are a few career paths open to us mingers and ginger-mingers. I mean, there are certainly job openings galore if what you crave is an action-packed life as an insurance adjuster or an assistant manager in Walmart or even one of the valued associates at Disney World who lives inside a Mickey Mouse costume. But if you have your heart set on being a professional childminder or lollypop man, forget it. Everyone will look at you and know you are both a paedophile and a psychopathic killer. And very possibly a serial rapist, as well – because as everybody knows – ginger-mingers (unlike Latin lovers with flashing eyes) are always lacking in that certain ‘department’ located in their Y-fronts. Using the same logic, ginger-mingers are – it goes without saying – psychopaths. Or at least neurotic whiners who should be placed on the sex-offenders list on the day of their birth.

This is why every single mass-murderer and serial rapist you see in the movies has got those horrible, washed-out, invisible greyish-blue eyes. And the actors portraying them can never get any other type of role, which makes some of them so depressed that they go on to become paedophiles in real life.

But as I was about to say before I interrupted myself, there are certain invisibly pale and boring would-be heart-throbs (the original models for the stealth bomber) who manage to become heart-throbs in spite of the fact that nobody ever manages to see them. And do you know why? Because of their armpits. Because if they have great armpits, nobody ever looks at their boring and invisible eyes or at their washed-out complexions or at their lank and greasy ‘just-this-side-of-gingery’, dirty-looking hair.

As I said before, armpits are the windows to the soul. Gaze into a perfect armpit and you are sucked into a forest of delights. You become a child again, fantasizing about a secret garden outside your bedroom window. Armpits as they should be are the true objects of desire that have inspired every poet from Ovid to Byron to Keats and Brooke, and right down to the present day. And whenever in a sacred text, the Garden of Eden is mentioned, what they are describing is the most perfect, the most sublime and most glorious armpit ever created.

There are certain thespians that have based their entire careers on the beauty and the purity-of-line of their armpits. One example that springs to mind is an American film actor named Ethan Hawke. Now, as far as I know he is a quite a decent actor. And as far as I know he is even fairly attractive to look at. But what I do know is that the camera is in love with his armpits. At least that used to be the case. But, of course, he is older now, which means his armpits might not so alluring. And he might have even let them go to pot. If so, this is undoubtedly the reason we don’t see as many of his films as we used to. For in the olden days, when his armpits were in their prime and you simply wanted to bury yourself in their depths, there would come a moment in each and every one of his movies when he would be wearing a singlet or a similar garment. At the climax of this moment, the lights would focus on his torso, and Ethan Hawke would raise his arms and place his hands in back of his head. And his perfectly sculpted and contoured armpits would make your heart explode. Never before or since have there been armpit ‘moments’ to equal these. And I still dream about them. And as for his eyes, I do not have a clue what colour they were. For in every single film he made, it was all about his armpits.

One of the great recent armpit movies was ‘Benjamin Button’ starring Brad Pitt. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but the way the filmmakers tracked the shifting ages of the protagonist was through the shifting character of his armpits. And that means, of course, through the shifting nature not only of the contours, but of his armpit hair. For as the character got younger, so his armpits became more beautiful – until you got to the point when he was a teenager, and the sheer loveliness of his fragrant gardens was almost heartbreaking. And if you don’t believe me, rent the move and see for yourself.

Now I admit I am neglecting women’s armpits (and God only knows there are more of those than there are stars in the sky – except in Muslim countries, where they don’t have any). And I admit they do have their attractions. Mostly razor-burns or white skid marks from using the wrong deodorants. And I will never deny having certain prejudices where armpits are concerned. However – and, yes, there is always a however – a perfect armpit is only perfect on a tight-knit body and for a certain number of years. For the most part – setting aside the inevitable beaches where all the wrong sorts of armpits are on display from both sexes – men, after a certain age – which means the age when their muscles start to turn to flab and their bodies are best seen after twilight and covered in a boiler suit – tend not to flaunt their armpits in public quite as much as they did when they had something that was worth flaunting. Unless, of course, we are talking about those members of the human race who sit on their barstools attired in cut offs and string vests, or about certain naturists who leave their vanity in the locker with their clothing; but if they are happy then so am I. And then there are those who have never been introduced to soap. In which case, they have coal pits. And as we all know, you venture into a coal pit at your own risk.

Men – with certain well-known exceptions – namely the aforementioned bar stool sitters and those who stopped developing after their high school football careers had ended – do have a certain over-wheening vanity when it comes to their bodies. And especially where their armpits are concerned (we will deal with stomachs at a later date).

Woman, on the hand, while they be as vain as men in many areas, have a blind spot when it comes to their armpits. It is as simple as that. They don’t seem to understand that a young, firm and succulent armpit can be displayed without shame. However, does that mean they should exhibit their nakedness and their razor-burns whenever they brush their hair back from their eyes? In fact, an armpit – which is after all, a sexual organ – should never be flaunted; it should be discovered. However, many women – from the moment they dress themselves in sleeveless tops – do nothing but flaunt their armpits. In fact, very often one sees much more of their armpits than ones does of their faces. How sad it is that they don’t stop pumping Botox into their phizogs, thus making them resemble weather balloons; after all, the only things they are displaying to the gathered assembly are a set of armpits that are – by then – well-past their sell-by date. And there is nothing Botox can do about them.

I won’t go so far as saying it’s a fetish, but if I had a choice between burying my face in a freshly sweating armpit (and notice I used a form of the word ‘fresh’) and a man’s groin (equally fresh, it goes without saying) I would opt for the armpit every time.

I admit that my behaviour can at times border on the embarrassing. For if I am with a man whose armpits are symphonies of delight, I simply cannot concentrate on anything he says. This was – alas – true of the last two horse-trainers I worked under. Both of them were in their mid-thirties, and both – it goes without saying – were extremely fit. Both had magnificently toned torsos… and both of them had the most outrageously succulent armpits I had seen in years. And, no, I never saw either of them shirtless; after all, we were occupied with other things – such as schooling jumpers. But when the weather was warm, both would wear short-sleeves shirts. And I almost could not contain myself. It was pure eroticism of the highest order. All I can say is it’s a good thing for me that it is armpits that mesmerise me. After all, if you are working with a straight man and insist on drooling at his crotch, he will eventually get slightly suspicious. But with armpits you are safe. You can stare at them for days and all your co-worker will think is that you are concentrating on what he is saying. And looking thoughtful. Of course, now that I’ve blown my cover by writing this, every man I know will go round with his arms strapped to his waist. Just to spite me.

What else can I say about armpits? Naturally, they should be clean. Yes, the armpit owner might want to use a small amount of anti-perspirent, but don’t glob it on. And don’t put it on before sex – unless, of course, the thought of my scrubbing your pits with a Brillo pad is what yanks your chain. And if you’ve got a rainforest denser that the entire Amazon delta you might want to check it now and then for borrowing rodents or for one of the lost tribes of Israel. And if you sweat profusely and have been working all day in the blistering heat, please don’t shove your pits into my face unless you want to get kneed. The smell of fresh sweat is one thing; the rancid stench of the abattoir is quite another.

And please, men and women and Walmart shoppers, remember the following politically incorrect statement: after anyone has gained a certain amount of weight (yes, that’s what I said), an armpit ceases to be an armpit and becomes something that might as well be two sweaty halves of a hamburger bun with crab-grass or poppy-seeds in the middle. Now, there is nothing wrong in this; we all have weight problems at some point in our lives. Just don’t persist in thinking that what was at one time an erogenous zone is still one of your main attractions. It is not. It’s like trying to pass off Gary Glitter as the star of ‘Glitter’. And for God’s sake, if you have put on a few tonnes and you do lose your pits, don’t go on pretending you still have them. You won’t fool anyone. And while I may still stare at them, it won’t be from lust, but because I will be trying to figure out if a pit actually existed there at one time, or if you were simply born with a lump of bread dough proofing under each arm.

Ah! Pits, glorious pits, pits of the evening, beautiful pits. Pits are like the sweetest, rarest fragrance. Know the power of your pits! Even if they are as clean and as pristine as a midsummer’s morn, don’t just go shoving them into a person’s face – not even a person like me, who loves a good pit to distraction. A pit that is sublime must be approached like an exotic perfume or a very, very fine wine. Or an exquisite bouillabaisse on which you are planning to dine.

Remember, with a pit that is perfect and with a person like you that knows what to do with a perfect pit, it is not a quick bump or grind or a “howdy do, ma’am, I hope you don’t mind” but a veritable feast of the senses. So give each pit an hour, or perhaps even two, and you’ll break down all their owner’s defences.